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Snow storm hits Lawrence

U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail on Sunday

Snow has not totally stopped the U.S. mail, but it is forcing carriers into an unorthodox situation.

Stuck between a backlog of mail caused by Thursday’s storm and an expected 10 to 12 inches of snow on Monday, the U.S. Postal Service will be making deliveries on Sunday in the Kansas City area, including in Lawrence and Leavenworth. The press release stated that Sunday was the best day for carriers to take advantage of clear streets.

The postal service asked that to help keep carriers safe customers “clear as much snow as possible from walkways, steps, porches and from around rural-type and cluster mailboxes.”

As Lawrence digs out from Thursday’s snowfall, another big storm may be on the way Monday.

The storm could bring freezing rain and snow to the area Sunday night and Monday morning, before switching to snow during the day. The NWS predicts the snow will end by Tuesday morning.

According to the NWS, the heaviest snow should come Monday evening and Tuesday. Winds of 20 to 30 miles per hour out of the north-northwest are also expected with the storm possibly creating near white-out conditions at times.

Megan Gilliland, city of Lawrence communications manager, said that if Lawrence gets snow before 8 a.m. Monday, the sidewalk snow ordinance will not go into effect Monday as originally planned.

Gilliland said Lawrence plow crews finished all snow operations as of noon Saturday and are already preparing for the upcoming storm by restocking and repairing equipment. Crews will be back on duty at midnight Monday to be ready to go Monday morning.

The city has also called in additional city resources and private contractors for help plowing roads.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Lawrence district had no plans to cancel school for Monday.

Vanessa Sanburn, Lawrence school board president, said Lawrence schools already will have to hold classes April 26, the day built into the calendar in case of extra snow days, to make up for the three days of canceled classes the district has had so far this school year.

On Sunday, the States Emergency Operations Center, which was also activated late last week, was activated. The center works with local municipalities in handling weather emergencies.

YouTube

Video of upcoming winter storm

A National Weather Service-issued video about the upcoming winter weather.

* To check the city's snow website, which includes a snowplow map, click here.

Do you mind if I ask which road that is? You have been very vocal with your disappointment in the way the city handles the clearing, so I'd be curious to know where (roughly) that is. Also, what do you feel would have been an appropriate time frame for the city to clear the snow?

I live near Langston Hughes, and none of the roads down this way were touched until late Friday / Early Sat.. I grew up in the north east were snow is measured in feet. I have been thru blizzards where you get 2-3 feet of snow in 24hrs and all roads are clear within less than 48 hours, so to sit and watch a city struggle to clear the roads from 9 inches of snow in that same amount of time lets you know that there is a system in place that is not using its resources properly. Like I have said I don't put the blame with the drivers, they are doing a great job. I put the blame with the higher ups who think up these plans, I think the city would profit greatly from bringing in someone from a snowy region to look at the resources that the city has and to help them improve the plan that they have to better use the equipment/manpower that they currently have.

What city would that be back in the north east? If they get that kind of snow they would be more prepared than a city that gets 8 or 10 inches per year. I say you don't know what you are talking about.

I grew up in Ohio. The city was about 30 sq/miles (lawrence is about 35) the city at that time had 10 trucks (lawrence has 14) the city takes way to much time here focusing on getting a street perfect before they move on which leave a large number of people stuck until they are finally gotten to. What the city needs to do while it is snowing is focusing on getting the snow off of the road as fast as possible and getting passes on every street. Than once the snow stops they can retrace their steps and work on prettying up the areas making sure all roads are than plowed to the full width and start picking up snow piles and clearing parking spots on Mass. Just a,ks yourself Lawrence has 220 miles of roads (according to a LJW article the other day) would it take you 48 hours to drive that far.

He didn't say anything about more machinery. The issue he sees, and I tend to agree with, is that Lawrence focuses on getting roads perfect before moving on. There is no way it should take until 9 pm on Friday night to make a first pass on a road, flat or not in a town the size of Lawrence. The only two measurable snow falls this year, it has been almost 48 hours before the streets near Langston Hughes have gotten one pass to clear them.

The mean annual snowfall is 17.31 inches in a year, but the standard deviation is 8.77, meaning that the annual totals fluctuate pretty wildly, with the annual snowfall totals being considerably less for the last 10 years:
4.6, 6.5, 11.8, 9.5, 1.4, 17.3, 0, 36.4, 3.8, 2,2
the average has been 9.35 inches of snow per year and if you take away the 36" year, it's only 6.3" per year.

That's hardly the kind of totals that indicate the kind of heavy equipment investment that your northeast US location made. I don't think someone from the northeast has a clue as to the kind of variability we have here in Kansas, meaning that we could spend out the wazoo beefing up our snow moving equipment and then have them sit unused for 3 or 4 year or more. It's probably better to have the city have a list of contracting trucks and tractors that are from local private snow moving lawn services that they might be able to tap into. Problem is, when it snows they're tied up, too, but I'll bet they could have some kind of arrangement to help mop up after a really big snow.

my point was it could be done a lot fast, the city has 14 trucks, so lets get rid of 2 (say they are broken) they could send 4 to Mass to keep it clear (while it snows not after) have 4 to get the major rodes (6th, 23rd, Iowa, Wakarusa) since it will work better if they clear the road 2 wide. That leave you with 4 trucks, you break the city into 4 pieces, there is 200ish miles double that since you need to clear both sides of the road that means each truck would need to clear 100 miles per shift. Which would mean that would have to average 10 miles per hour during their shift (actually giving them 120 miles driven) that means that at least once every 12 hours every road would see their roads plowed. Well within the cities resources and lets just say that all 14 trucks are working then they secondary roads would see plows even sooner.

Did you figure in time to eat and go to the bathroom? I also believe they cannot just pull into any gas station to refuel, the city has it's own station. I'm sorry, 36 hours is not that bad, we had plenty of warning to prepare ourselves. Come on, these guys are human and need a break every once in a while. Were you able to still get around? We did, and our street was not plowed, but once we got to a main road it was not that hard.

They are working 12 hour shifts, that mean they would need about 10 hours to do their area, leaving about 2 hours of "slush" time, also they would be going faster than 10mph most of the time which means there would also be additional time saved, I don't know about you but most people don't get that much down time while working. And no we could not get out until the street was plowed because we live at the bottom of a hill, neighbors tried a few times but none were success.

It sounds to me like your Ohio town has enough experience that telling the Lawrence coordinator the name of the guy in Ohio who does the same thing would be well worth sharing. If done in an open nonthreatening way, the two might have a lot to talk about and who knows? We might learn a few tricks about being more efficient with our work force?

I live in the county, south of Lawrence. The roads out here are VERY well cared-for. I so appreciate all the hard work the county crews put in.... getting out of my own driveway however is the issue ;(

The city street department employees did a fantastic job. I hope I can talk them into ramming the idiotic motorists that created traffic hazards after getting stuck in the snow. The police should have issued tickets to all the stalled drivers.

A great man, William Quantrill once said, Raise the orange flag, lower the blades and drive them hard boys are cause is just and the idiots are many.

Hope you're joking with last part. With the 150th anniversary coming up, having a soft spot for that total idiot and murdering coward is a liability. Still baffles me how there could be a "William Quantrill Society" in the 21st century, but then Ole Miss just got around to submitting its ratification of the 13th amendment, so I suppose we haven't come as far as we like to think.

Oh, Buck. There were some who came here from the East for a "land grab" and many were from Missouri. While some territorial citizens were for keeping blacks out of the state (see the Wyandotte constitution), there were many in Kansas who were not.
So lets see if we can get the history straight, because I am not sure you do.

1."Land grab" is an especially wrong characterization of Lawrence's founding.
The territory was opened for settlement in 1854 with the slavery question to be settled by popular sovereignty, hence the New England Emigrant Aid Company founded the city that year to help make Kansas a free state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Emigrant_Aid_Company

2.Most who moved here would certainly have favored more liberty and justice for blacks than the pro-slavery factions. New Englanders commonly held views comparable to Lincoln's, being anti-slavery but hardly outright abolitionist or desiring total racial equality and integration. People nowadays are increasingly aware of this distinction, so to presume ignorance is to create a straw man argument, not that you're interested in such finer points of debate.

3.Obviously, most Lawrence citizens were not involved in counter-raids into Missouri, and thus Quantrill was both an idiot and a coward to order the slaughter of nearly 200 men and boys, mostly unarmed civilians. I truly hope that you are not making your misguided generalizations in order to suggest that Quantrill's raid was understandable (or even justified), for such a stance would be neo-Confederate dead-ender nonsense. In that case, nevermind moving to Missouri; you'd be best suited to living in Mississippi where they still have the stars and bars within their flag...

The rec center is badly needed and will be used heavily. Gym space is Lawrence, a definatively basketatball town, is terrible. That said, spending on a rec center should only be done in times of stability. Is Lawrence stable financially?

What makes you think wealthy people want this? Most of the people I know with money don't understand why the city commission is ramming this down the taxpayers throats. I don't know a single person that thinks we need this piece of garbage.

Elliottaw, we live by Langston and our street was cleared yesterday afternoon. That would be 32 hours after the snow started that an off-the-path road got cleared. Advantage: city. Great job guys. KRich: thanks for the laugh. A rec center nobody will ever use. Hilarious. Just spent 13 hours at LHS gym watching 6th grade bball. But nobody will use the rec center. Advantage, again, city and its 4 commissioners with a vision for what Lawrence could be. So happy we will have a first-class economic development vehicle to partner with our other greatest tourist attraction, KU.

JW: Please keep up your weather graphics in a more timely fashion--if you're going to use a NWS graphic (which I think is a great idea) then also provide a link to viewers so that they can see if there are any updates:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/wxstory.php?site=top

This morning is an example--your current graphic was from last night--here's the latest one, updated over 2 hours ago:

The National Weather Service predicts 10 to 12 inches of snow to blanket the Lawrence area on Monday and Tuesday. Graphic courtesy of the National Weather Service.
by Ken Lassman

Ms. Sanburn, have you guys considered knocking a half an hour off of early dismissal. School would get out an hour early instead of and hour and a half. You are also allowed by the state to just add time to the school days. It would just make the school day a few minutes longer. It's not rocket science.

Maybe they need to start building more snow days in and then they could let them out earlier in May if they don't use them. As it is now they are out by the middle of May. Last day of class is May 17th in Eudora, with Graduation on May 18th. I'm not sure how they are going to have time to make up 4 snow days in two and 1/2 months.

In years past, they have just added time to the end of the day to make up hours. I don't understand why they don't build in extra days. The last day of class in Lawrence is May 23rd, so we have plenty of time to add on to the school days that are left.

I grew up in Central Kansas and attended a small school in a farming community and a lot of the students lived in rural areas on gravel roads miles from town. I remember one year when I was in grade school we had a massive ice storm and used up all of the scheduled snow days in one week.

Not only were additional days added to the end of the school year, we also had school on a Saturday morning.

They tried the Saturday thing in Salina back in '78. Only about half the kids showed up from what I was told. I was home with Dad, putting new doors on his workshop. Probably learned more that day than if I'd gone to school.

My mother, who lives in SE KS, mentioned that they had similar amounts of snow, but that their neighborhood doesn't see a plow at all, since their town is in such dire financial straits. That frankly doesn't make much sense to me, if they already have access to the equipment and manpower, but I don't question her account. I know that their downtown square is plowed but am unsure as to how much of the town is left on its own.

Could be worse here, for sure (although I would appreciate our paved alley getting a once over - more cars park in the lots back here than on the street, probably at least 40)! I do feel for the people whose cars get plowed in when parked on the street. It's bad enough that with the partial melting yesterday and people driving on the snow, the alley (and elsewhere) are now big ice rinks, especially the alley intersections, and probably will be for quite some time given that the area receives very little direct sunlight. Good thing I don't have a low vehicle! :-)

Bring the next one on, we need all the precipitation we can get while the gettin is good.; help add to the subsurface moisture, farm ponds and city landscaping. Finished CY 2012 with just half the average,only 20.2" inches off of Stull Road for the year, bout 40.0 is normal.is normal..